KTH-researcher granted eurammon Natural Refrigeration Award 2011

Behzad Abolhassani Monfared, researcher at Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, was granted 2nd place of this year’s three eurammon Natural Refrigeration Awards.

The award was given to Behzad Abolhassani Monfared for his article “Design and Construction of a Small Ammonia Heat Pump”. He was presented the award at the official Award Ceremony on October 7, 2011 in Schaffhausen.

The abstracts of the award winning article is presented below:

Abstract
In view of the fact that most of the synthetic refrigerants, in case of leakage or release, are harmful to the environment by contributing in global warming or depleting stratospheric ozone layer, many research works have been done recently to find alternative refrigerants posing no or negligible threat to the environment. Among alternative refrigerants, ammonia, a natural refrigerant with zero Global Warming Potential (GWP) and Ozone Depletion Potential (ODP), can be a sensible choice.
Although ammonia has been used for many years in large industrial systems, its application in small units is rare. In this project a small heat pump with about 7.5 kW heating capacity at -5 °C and +40 °C evaporation and condensation temperatures is designed and built to work with ammonia as refrigerant. The heat pump is expected to produce enough heat to keep a single-family house warm in Sweden and to provide tap hot water for the house. After successful completion of this project, it is planned to install the heat pump in a house to test it throughout a heating season to study its performance in real working conditions.
Since ammonia is flammable and toxic in high concentrations, the refrigerant charge is tried to be kept low in the heat pump to reduce the risk of fire or poisoning in case of unwanted release of refrigerant to the surroundings. The compact design of the heat pump helps reducing the refrigerant charge. Besides, considering the limited space normally reserved for installation of a heat pump in a house, the compact design of the heat pump is necessary.

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